The Chamber of Restitution
by Indigo Rowan
Summary: "Enter the chamber of restitution, the debt will be paid, life will end." Rothis and Quileya are two young wizards sent on what they think will be an easy mission. It becomes more complicated when they discover the Lone Power has other intentions. Short story.


**A/N: Hi! I discovered this place again and decided I HAD to finish this story. It's based on a planet somewhere in the universe, with two wizards of two different species that don't have names. I hope you don't mind. I don't know that I could write a full on story with lots of chapters, but if you'd like to see me try, pm me, please! **

**Quileya: and if we could just get on with the story, since it IS only one chapter...**

**Rothis: yeah, I've been wait for like a month to see the ending!**

**Me, Indigo: all right, all right, I'm shutting up!**

**~|Line break|~**

"Wow, this place is huge!" Quileya tilted her head back and extended her neck. "I didn't know it was going to be so white."

"According the records, it was built nine centuries ago, by the former inhabitants, a bug-like species called the _Dorfflassen._ Twelve legs, three eyes and very high intelligence. Apparently they just disappeared right after they completed the inner temple." Rothis flipped through the pages of an invisible book hanging in the air. "Doesn't make that much sense, considering It usually likes mindless minions. And why would they disappear? Wouldn't It want them around for the war?"

Quileya sucked her neck back to its normal proportions. "You're reading the records, check the most recent entries."

Rothis frowned. "This is odd. Someone was here four years ago. Who would want to come here?"

"Maybe they were sent, just like us."

"But Awdendet said no one had been here for at least a century, when a master comes to check that the sentience is at the same level of awareness."

"Then maybe she came to wake up the sentience."

Rothis stopped peering at the book that wasn't there and looked over at his companion. "She?"

With long blue arms, Quileya gestured expansively at the large white hall they were standing in. "This place has a female feel to it. And there were soft feet in here."

"Plenty of species have soft feet, it doesn't have to have been a female."

"Well, it was. I think she was here because she was desperate."

Rothis didn't reply. In situations like these, Quileya's talent for knowing things that should be unknowable generally turned out to be more correct that the data he read from the surroundings. "So, a desperate - what was she?"

Quileya moved forward on blue legs toward the other end of the hall, shuffling her feet on the marble-like stone that made up all the surface area. Rothis followed her, bringing along the records, which had transferred themselves to his mind. Whether she hadn't heard his question, or just didn't know the answer yet, Quileya didn't respond as they walked in silence down the hall.

Little by little, Rothis became uncomfortably aware of a presence taking note of their arrival. He tried not to look at the ceiling, which seemed to have eyes trained on him and Quileya. She appeared not to notice anything, but with Quileya, you could never tell. Oftentimes she noticed much more than she let on.

They came to a large door made of the same white stone, and only discernible by the border of black that created a doorframe. Rothis stepped forward and laid his hand on the door. A moment later, it silently and slowly swung open, revealing a large room carved from red stone with white and black patterns set into the floor. Quileya squinted at the first design and walked carefully up to it.

_"_There's writing in this. I think I can read it if-" and Quileya squinted at the floor for a few moments while Rothis walked further into the room. _"Enter the chamber of restitution- to be certain your debt is paid_, no_, your debt WILL be paid_, no, hang on." She swung out her neck and looked at the writing from different angles. "Hmm, let me try again_. Enter the chamber of restitution - if you are certain your debt is paid._ Or _will be paid_, I'm not sure which. Let me look at the other messages."

"Are you sure they're messages at all? It could just be pieces of some ancient poem or something…" Rothis felt his red cheeks heat up as Quileya delivered a withering glance at him. "All right, I know what this place was built for, or rather, Who, but still, what does restitution have to do with it? And I thought this was a temple, not a palace." He opened a mental image of the record book from the hall and scanned page after page.

"It's restitution all right; looks like those Dorflassen owed It some sort of debt." She moved all around the room as she surveyed each pattern message. "So not only did they have to build It a big white temple-palace thing, but then they-" Quileya scrunched up her face and stopped reading the floor messages. "Oh."

Rothis gave up on the records since they showed nothing but nonsense after the entry declaring that the Dorflassen disappeared. "Oh?"

"Wait a minute, I want to check the last of the messages." Quileya scurried across the floor and bent over the final black and white design before the red wall to the right. "They're all pretty similar, actually, they're all part of the same message, with some parts repeated, but that's for emphasis. It's the parts in the middle that you read as the next line, if it was written out in ordinary, or at least, their native language, the dorflassen language I mean. The beginnings and endings are just to encase it properly. It must be part of the form and makes the restitution bit very clear; no one coming in here could mistake this for another meaning." Rothis rolled his eyes briefly at her typical way of explaining without really explaining, but then he perked up at the last sentence. "I think I understand now."

Tapping one foot on the red floor, Rothis folded his arms. "So? Tell me. Then we can figure out how awake the sentience is, possibly put it to sleep again, and get out of here. I don't like this place."

"You wouldn't," Quileya mused, then stood up straight and walked to the center of the room. "All right, here's what it says all together, as best as I can understand, anyway." She started to speak as though she were reciting a ballad.

_"Enter the chamber of restitution_

_The price is heavy | the story is old_

_If life means nothing | discard it_

_Like the price that must be paid_

_The chamber is here | forever it waits_

_The dark | in the light_

_Enter the chamber of restitution_

_The debt will be paid | life will end._

"And it repeats a couple of times, but like I said before, it's just for emphasis."

Rothis blew out slowly. "That's not foreboding at all."

"Well, it's not, not really. The message is pertinent to any time, for always." Quileya was scribbling away at the interpretation she was writing down on one of the scraps of paper she kept on her person. "It's even pertinent to us, even if the debt is not owed by us."

Rothis blinked. "Quileya."

She didn't look up from her paper as she made corrections to the message. "Yes?"

"The last line, 'the debt will be paid, life will end,' you do think it just means that the dorflassen, wherever they went, will have to pay it, don't you?"

"I think they already did."

"Then why is the message pertinent to us?"

"Because It thinks everyone is in its debt. A binding like this, well, It could make it out to apply to anyone, the way It twists all its words to fit its own meaning."

His fingers clenching and unclenching nervously, Rothis thought about this for about three and a half seconds. "So in other words, anyone who enters the chamber of restitution has to pay the debt."

"According to It."

"And you're not worried? This means we'll probably have to fight our way out of here!"

Quileya finally stopped writing and squinted instead at her companion, a patient smile on her face. "No, Rothis, we won't. Because if It can interpret this message to mean anyone, we can interpret it to mean the dorflassen, and they've already paid. With their lives." Her smile dropped away. "So are we going to check on the sentience or what?"

Rothis shook his head in an effort to clear it of doubt. "Right, let's do that. I want to leave this creepy place as soon as we can."

By silent consent, they stayed close together while trekking through another long white hallway after the red room. After arriving at the mouth of a cave-like staircase, Rothis took the lead, not because he thought Quileya was afraid, but because he didn't want to show his own fear. A brave face was almost as essential to a mission like this as bringing along the proper equipment. Not that it was wise to ignore caution when poking around in Its territory, but courage was often the most important tool a wizard could carry.

The staircase, besides being black and dark and wide enough only for two people to pass each other, also seemed endless. Around and around the two wizards stepped, with Rothis holding a wizard's light in one hand to show the way. Although he could not see her, Rothis knew that Quileya was preparing her spells, reciting in her head eight of nine words to a killing spell, or a shield spell, among others. He tried to do the same. If not for Quileya's interpretation of the pattern messages from the red room, he wouldn't have felt so nervous. But the words kept rebounding in his mind. _Enter the chamber of restitution; the debt will be paid; life will end._

And despite Quileya's apparent indifference to those words, he couldn't bring himself to simply ignore them. She said the debt had already been paid. But didn't It always consider wizards to be in its debt? Rothis focused himself again. They were here to check on the sentience, that was all. If they met with some resistance, well, they were prepared for that. They'd met It before, and come out alive. They would do so again.

"We're here."

Rothis jerked his head up and realized that two steps down and ahead of him was a massive black door. He walked down and up to the obsidian-like stone door, and made to place one hand on it.

"No, don't!" Quileya yanked his hand away. "It's a trap. Don't try to open it."

"But there's no other door."

"This is not a door. It's the entrance. Follow me." And she walked through the stone.

Rothis stared after her. He was tempted to poke the stone to see if it was an illusion or some kind of liquid held in place by a spell. His mind scraped at his surroundings and came up with nothing but a deadly stillness emanating from the door that almost shouted "touch me!"

Inhaling a deep breath, Rothis closed his eyes and walked forward. He passed through something that was nothing, and his light went out. Once on the other side of the shivery nothingness, he attempted to produce another wizard's light, but nothing happened.

"Quileya?" He couldn't see anything.

A ball of bluish light appeared near his face and Quileya's face lit up in front of him. "You're afraid. It's just darkness, Rothis, we've met it before. Face it without fear. We bring light." Her periwinkle eyes steadied him, and his light bobbed up next to hers, a reddish ball-shaped lantern. "Good, now let's go. The inner chamber is where the sentience sleeps."

"It's sleeping?"

"I don't know. The walls are too thick."

Rothis quirked his eyebrows at this, but didn't say anything. Quileya couldn't know everything, nor did he expect her to. But for her to admit it? Was she also afraid, just a little bit? The thought that she might be reassured him further still, and his hands stopped trembling. He followed behind his companion as she strode rather confidently across the black floor toward whatever lay in the darkness ahead.

The opposite wall rose out of nowhere, it seemed to Rothis, who nearly smashed his nose into the polished blackness that shimmered faintly in the glow of his wizard's light. Quileya had stopped just before what apparently was the door to the inner chamber.

"Will my touch work here?" Rothis knew it was a stupid question even as it left his mouth. "Never mind; the opening spell, Awdendet gave it to you. How do I say it?"

"It'll come to you after I start. He planned it that way."

"I hate when he allows mind-melding without asking us."

Quileya had a faraway look on her face. "You know he'd never let anything slip. We can trust him."

"I know, I know. Can we start now? I want to leave as soon as possible." His wizard's light wavered a bit and he glared at it. It quickly brightened up again.

"Ready? I'm starting."

Quileya took a breath and started to speak. Slowly, each word precise and deliberate, sentences formed and began to glow on the door in front of them, clear and yet visible, flowing on and on as Quileya continued, and Rothis joined her. Their voices melded as their minds did, chanting as one voice in two notes, creating the spell that would open the door. The reality around them shifted and became transparent, changing into what the spell commanded. Rothis would have been surprised had he been fully aware of circumstances around him, but the spell needed every ounce of concentration and willing abandonment of physical existence. A slight pause, then they both spoke the final word. The spell released, and all was silent.

And then a roar. Not an audible roar, but a physical one, with a magnitude that knocked the young wizards off their feet. Rothis rolled over, panting as he struggled to get his breath back. The air around him hummed, like someone snoring lightly, with undercurrents of expectancy. As he got to his feet, he saw Quileya standing very still a few yards ahead of him. Rothis sighed with relief; she was okay. Though, as he looked beyond her, at the dark shape throwing a huge shadow on the wall behind, his breath caught in his chest.

"What…is…that?" he breathed out slowly, reaching for Quileya's hand. She accepted his but didn't take her eyes off of the monster before them. A rumbling noise emanated from the mass of grey flesh that sprawled on the black stone floor. "Is it…sleeping?"

Quileya reached into the air, her blue hand disappearing into an otherspace pocket. She drew out a glowing ring with spells hanging off it. "I think…I think it _was_ sleeping. Now it's waking up."

"So we just say the spell, right? Awdendet gave me both of our parts. Quileya? This is what we came here for, to put the sentience back to sleep. Let's do it."

Quileya still wouldn't look him, like she was afraid to take her eyes off the snoring beast in front of them. "This is just a shell. A construct created to protect what the records call the sentience. We would call it a kernel."

"You mean we have to mess with the kernel?" Rothis whispered desperately. "We're not experienced with kernels!"

"Rothis, you're afraid again. Where's your light?"

He swallowed and his red lantern bobbed in the air beside Quileya's blue one. She spoke softly, like she was speaking to a young child. "Good. Now listen to me very carefully. We have to wake the beast. No, shush, listen. You will have to deal with him while find the kernel. Remember, it has the sentience still clinging to it, so I'll probably have to talk for a while. If you can't simply incapacitate the beast, then we'll have to do away with him. Do you understand?"

Rothis stared at her, taking in her unblinking periwinkle eyes, her steady hands and steady breathing. He'd faced worse than this_. They'd_ faced worse than this and come out alive. They would do it again. At the very least, they could save another world's heart from It. "I understand. Are you sure you can convince the sentience to let go?"

Quileya looked at him for a brief second, a ghost of a smile on her lips. "I have the truth. The truth is always more powerful than lies." She stepped forward and fingered one of the spells on her "keychain" and started whispering.

Beside her, Rothis readied his own spells. The flesh creature, although a construct, was old and seasoned. Still, he still had his last resort. If worse came to worst, his meteorite would take care of the flesh beast - and quite possibly himself and Quileya - but hopefully after she'd banished It from the kernel. _Come on, Quileya, I believe in you._ He heard her say words in the wizardly speech that he didn't recognize. No doubt she was receiving knowledge even as she spoke.

A new kind of quiet fell in the chamber and Rothis realized that the grey flesh had stopped snoring. He blinked, and a single, yellow eye blinked slowly back at him. Then a crease appeared, which turned into a crack, and then a large black hole in the skin-like surface of the flesh's "body." From the hole came a stinking, terror-filled roar of the same magnitude that had previously bowled the young wizards over. Now, behind his shield, Rothis felt a wave of brute force mixed with fear crash over him.

Again, he blinked. The flesh didn't stop roaring, but the yellow eye blinked back. Reciting twenty-eight of twenty-nine words to a powerful spell, Rothis refrained from speaking the last word as a piece of knowledge came to him, in the same way Quileya seemed to receive hers; a voice with no sound and yet a rich tone filled his mind with the idea that the creature he was fighting feared him.

Rothis puzzled over this for a moment, then said another spell instead, one that threw a muffler over the flesh and cut off its roar. The yellow eye seemed to widen and the creature made small whining sounds. Rothis glanced at Quileya, who was now gesturing wildly with long, blue arms to accompany her speech. A tangle of pulsing light strings seemed to be coming out of that large hole in the flesh's skin. When it was within reach, Quileya snatched it from the air.

With a great sigh and a massive groan, the flesh collapsed on the floor and slowly faded away. Quileya held the kernel and frowned. Rothis' grin faded quickly. "Did you do it?"

She looked at him in discomfort and a small amount of annoyance. "It's coming."

Rothis made a choking sound. "But, I thought there was just a shadow of It in the kernel."

"There was. Now It wants to say something about why there isn't." Quileya lifted her head and turned around. Dreading what he knew he'd see, Rothis turned with her. In the glow of their wizard lanterns stood a tall, dark cloaked figure. In the same way as before, Rothis received the knowledge that It was smiling and that somehow that was a good thing. Except, how could it be? A relatively simple intervention had turned into a full scale confrontation with It.

"Fairest and fallen, greetings and defiance." Quileya delivered the tradition greeting to the Lone Power in a voice that told It she thought It stood no chance against them.

Rothis opened his mouth to say something brave, but no words came to mind. It chuckled, a mix between a growl and a hiss that sent chills down Rothis' entire body. He looked at Quileya, who actually managed to look bored with the encounter.

"I think you should hand that over, wizards," It said smoothly.

Quileya raised white eyebrows. "You do, huh? Well, I'm sorry, but I still have some adjustments to make."

It hiss-growled again. "Do you really think you can change this world and leave so easily? You entered, you pay. The former inhabitants let me make the rules. Those are the rules."

"Are you talking about the message?"

It glared at her. "Ah yes, you _are _very good at understanding things, aren't you? Then you will know that the message states the rules very clearly. You entered the chamber; you must pay the debt."

Quileya sighed, a twitched a glowing strand of the kernel. "The message said the debt must be paid, and it has been. You really are stupid if you think we're all still in your debt because you invented death." She tugged on another string.

It winced and hissed at her. "The rules stand: you must obey."

"The rules belong to you. We belong to Life, to the One, to the Universe. Your petty rules have nothing on us."

It advanced toward Quileya and Rothis found the words he was looking for from the soundless voice in his head. "The debt will be paid. I'll pay it myself."

Quileya gasped and reached out to tug on his hand. He brushed her off and said six words. Her eyes went wide and the kernel fell from her stiff hands. Rothis neatly caught it and tossed it from one hand to the other.

"Look here, cloaky, here's how this will go down. I'll pay your price, and she goes free."

It laughed outright, a terrible, grating sound. "You think you can bargain with me?"

Rothis grinned and held up the kernel. "I know I can. See, my partner is very smart. Look at her face; you'd never know she was acting. Nobody wins a battle of words with Quileya. She really _does_ understand things. That's why she understood the flaws in your message." Rothis started to pace. "See, all the emphasis that you put into restitution was a mistake. We have no part in your deal with the dorflassen. That was between you and them." A word and Quileya was released. He tossed the kernel back to her.

She smiled and held it carefully, fiddling with more strings as she talked. "The dorflassen paid already. You entered the chamber; it's your turn."

It seethed. A rumbling from underneath Its feet told Rothis the time to act was now or never. "Pay up!" he yelled, as he spoke the last words of his meteorite spell and all hell broke loose.

Actually, hell broke loose inside the chamber where the shade of It was paying for his end of the bargain. Outside the temple, Rothis watched Quileya change the message to read: the debt _has _been paid. "Where will you hide it?" He asked, jerking his head at the kernel in her hands. She smiled.

"I don't think I'll tell you." She kept smiling that Quileya, mysterious, I-know-something-you-don't-know smile. "I'll hide it and then head back home. You should go home too. I know your _sari_ wasn't too happy about us taking on this mission. You should go tell her your all right."

Rothis nodded. Then he walked forward and hugged her tightly. She hugged him back, long arms wrapping around his stockier body. "Meet me at the usual place tomorrow?"

She nodded back. "For sure. Dai stiho."

"Dai."


End file.
